2019 Country Fair & Gathering – Highlights
For the 2019 Country Fair & Gathering Event Details, click here.
Thank you to everyone who came out to the Country Fair and Gathering on Saturday. It was a beautiful day in Sedalia!
The 2019 Country Fair was blessed with moderate temperatures and a bit of a breeze, a nice summer day for horse show exhibitors, demonstrators, and fairgoers alike to enjoy being outdoors in the country. The arena rumbled under wagons, the hoofs of big black horses, and the scampering feet of dogs and the sheep they herded.
Musicians Catherine the Great, East Bound, and unannounced guests Dale and Robert Overstreet kept the pavilion upbeat and didn’t seem to bother the chickens at all. FFA brought sheep and goats, sold mums, and generally added to the life of the Fair.
LT Skinnell demonstrated forging, and vendors offered good food and a wide variety of merchandise. Doug MacLeod set up his camp with its ancient artifacts in the lower meadow, showing kids how to weave yucca into mats and to use primitive bows and arrows. Mark Angelini and John Fluger carved wood into spoons and animals. Children wore out the playground and ate Italian ice. The Pollinator Garden hummed brightly in its beds, and the Angelinis explained plans for next year’s sustainable vegetable garden.
2020 will be the first year in many decades that hemp can be legally grown in Virginia. Bedford County Extension Agent Scott Baker, and Chris Wood, who grows hemp for oil at Peaks of Otter Hemp, addressed agricultural issues of growing hemp for fiber and medicinal oil.
Doris McCabe thanked the Al Stroobants Foundation for the solar micro-grid it awarded the Sedalia Center, and Mark Howard and Shane Tyree of Powermark Electrical, who designed and installed it, gave impromptu tours of the system. 2019 is the 60th anniversary of the construction of the Counter Ridge School, the original incarnation of the Sedalia Center. Alumna Deborah Reeves spoke of the history of black children’s education in northern Bedford County, reminding the audience of the milestone that the building of Counter Ridge marked: a school with indoor plumbing, a cafeteria, and a kitchen where the lunch ladies cooked from scratch. A school that gave a child a sense of dignity and the opportunity to advance. And gave the Sedalia Center a history it can be proud of.
the Winners
Horse Show
Coming Soon
POULTRY
Chickens
- Speckled Sussex 1st Charlie Moser
- Serama Rooster & Hen 2nd Charlie Moser
- Buff 1st Madison Cocke
- Silver Lace Wyandotte 1st Charlie Moser
- Polish Frizzle 1st Bob Curfiss
- Phoenix Rooster 1st Rachel Cocke
- Dark Brahama 1st Emily Cocke
- Sex Link 1st Emily Cocke
- Silkie Rooster 1st Ava Curfiss
- Gray Silkie 1st Emily Cocke
Photography
- Lone Bale 1st Elaine Lee
- Maria in Snow 2nd Elaine Lee
- Three Flowers 3rd Donna Owen
- Marked Wire 4th Elaine Lee
- Two Cats 5th Donna Owen
- Curve to the Peaks of Otter 6th Elaine Lee
CANNING
Vegetables
- Red & Yellow Tomatoes 1st Emma Markham
- Mr. Stripy Tomatoes 1st Emma Markham
- Tomatoes 1st Christy Boone
- Tomatoes 2nd Christy Boone
- Tomatoes 3rd Christy Boone
Pickled Cucumbers
- Dill Pickles 1st Emma Markham
- Pickle Relish 1st Emma Markham
Pickled Vegetables
- Squash Relish 1st Patricia Stevens
- Christmas Jam 2nd Patricia Stevens
Pickled Cabbage
- Chow-Chow 1st Emma Markham
- Red Chow-Chow 1st Emma Markham
Baking
Pies
- Apple Pie 1st Doris McCabe
- Jicama Pie 2nd Larry Freeman
Produce
Root Vegetable
Jicama 1st Larry Freeman
Watermelon
- Charleston Grey 1st Donald Steen
- Heirloom Organic 1st Doris McCabe
FRESH EGGS
- Brown Eggs 1st Stormie Shelton
- Colored Eggs 1st Stormie Shelton
- Easter Eggs 1st Emily Cocke
- Small White Eggs 1st Madison Cocke
- White Eggs 2nd Stormie Shelton
- Farm Fresh Display Eggs 1st Emily Cocke